All you people that are bitching should do a little research before you run your mouths. Hell, take a minute to go watch "Who killed the electric car" and learn about the EV-1 for example.
Look, big oil is sitting on every major battery patent that would allow us to all have 500 mile per charge vehicles that take 5 minutes to charge. For every electric car there is, thats: 10 gallons a week, 40 gallons a month, 480 gallons a year, 4800 gallons after the life of the car that they're not selling. at $3 thats damn near $14,400 for the lifetime of my car. And hell, those are the numbers from my 35 mpg civic. its 3 times as much for a v8 pick up truck!! Why the hell would they let electric cars ever be built!!
And lets assume that 50% of American cars were electric. Well then the oil companies wouldn't sell gasoline for these vehicles AND they would have to sell gasoline cheaper. THERES NO WAY IN HELL IT COSTS $3 WHEN HALF AS MANY PEOPLE USE IT. Thats like a double whammy there.
If you believe what you hear on "who killed the electric car?" you shouldn't be allowed to read a gadget blog.
Sandisk stock is at 50% of what it was last year because of comoditization and Asian ripoffs, and yet these battery patents you crow about are magically keeping the entire world from building a decent EV? If the technology has already come that far, you'd see a company like Aptera starting up in every city, and even the Apple lawyers couldn't do *** about it.
Seriously Sam, you have no idea what you're talking about.
Patents may be public record, but that doesn't mean i can USE THEM if they're already pattented. You cant say they're not "sitting on my magic patent" unless you look at EVERY LAST PATENT. You may have the time, i dont.
@Kevman
Well im glad you understand the electrical grid, because you surely dont understand what an example is...
"In 1994, General Motors acquired a controlling interest in Ovonics's battery development and manufacturing, including patents controlling the manufacturing of large nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries. In 2001, Texaco purchased GM's share in GM Ovonics. A few months later, Chevron acquired Texaco. In 2003, Texaco Ovonics Battery Systems was restructured into Cobasys, a 50/50 joint venture between Chevron and Energy Conversion Devices (ECD) Ovonics. Chevron's influence over Cobasys extends beyond a strict 50/50 joint venture. Chevron holds a 19.99% interest in ECD Ovonics. Chevron also maintains veto power over any sale or licensing of NiMH technology. In addition, Chevron maintains the right to seize all of Cobasys' intellectual property rights in the event that ECD Ovonics does not fulfill its contractual obligations."
JOE patents are what makes this so bad. you see until the patent expires you CAN NOT build an EV Nimh LFF battery pack without explicit permission from Chevron. SO how do they sit on it? Easy. They refuse to give you permission. DONE. could you use the patent information to "make it anyway" ? sure Could Chevron then sue you into non existence and OWN every battery you make? NO they answer is not could they. They definitely WOULD in a heart beat and they have way more dollars and way more lawyers than you do. Unless something changes you can not TOUCH that patent till 2017. All you can do is exactly what you mentioned. LOOK at it and dream.
THATS how you "sit" on a technology. You just refuse to license it. Unlike Trademarks etc.. you are under NO obligation to actually USE a patent you own. Thats part of the problem.
Good Luck buying those batteries. They are likely arrays of smaller batteries inside. I gave up looking for LFF Nimhs some time ago. I always get taking no more orders OR ultra expensive multi cell arrays to make the "large" nimh battery.
but if I could buy 100amp hour NIMHS I would only need 80 cells total to get a 96v 100amp hour battery pack. That should be enough to get me some 200+ miles on a charge. The larger cells are also more durable IE they last lot longer with far lower "loss" over time. Some of the original LFF nimhs have over 150,000 miles on them and still retain 95% or more of there original capacity!! Reduce that to 48v and use a reduction drive to get your needed speed (lower acceleration but thats ok with me) and now you only need 40 cells!!! Much easier to manage charge and maintain. also its a lot easier to manage a cell that is 10% off match to the rest of the cells when your talking 100amp batteries than it is when your talking 10amp batteries.
For me to replicate that pack would require 800 cells with the currently "permissable" nimhs. which is why you don't see it being done.
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This kid did great!
All you people that are bitching should do a little research before you run your mouths. Hell, take a minute to go watch "Who killed the electric car" and learn about the EV-1 for example.
Look, big oil is sitting on every major battery patent that would allow us to all have 500 mile per charge vehicles that take 5 minutes to charge. For every electric car there is, thats: 10 gallons a week, 40 gallons a month, 480 gallons a year, 4800 gallons after the life of the car that they're not selling. at $3 thats damn near $14,400 for the lifetime of my car. And hell, those are the numbers from my 35 mpg civic. its 3 times as much for a v8 pick up truck!! Why the hell would they let electric cars ever be built!!
And lets assume that 50% of American cars were electric. Well then the oil companies wouldn't sell gasoline for these vehicles AND they would have to sell gasoline cheaper. THERES NO WAY IN HELL IT COSTS $3 WHEN HALF AS MANY PEOPLE USE IT. Thats like a double whammy there.
If you believe what you hear on "who killed the electric car?" you shouldn't be allowed to read a gadget blog.
Sandisk stock is at 50% of what it was last year because of comoditization and Asian ripoffs, and yet these battery patents you crow about are magically keeping the entire world from building a decent EV? If the technology has already come that far, you'd see a company like Aptera starting up in every city, and even the Apple lawyers couldn't do *** about it.
Seriously Sam, you have no idea what you're talking about.
Patents are public. Big oil isn't sitting on your alleged magic wand patents. Check for yourself.
"And lets assume that 50% of American cars were electric."
At 10% we'll experience major blackouts. Electric cars only make sense if we start building some nuclear plants to charge all those batteries.
@lUKE
Your post made no sense as a response
@Joe
Patents may be public record, but that doesn't mean i can USE THEM if they're already pattented. You cant say they're not "sitting on my magic patent" unless you look at EVERY LAST PATENT. You may have the time, i dont.
@Kevman
Well im glad you understand the electrical grid, because you surely dont understand what an example is...
@Joe
"In 1994, General Motors acquired a controlling interest in Ovonics's battery development and manufacturing, including patents controlling the manufacturing of large nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries. In 2001, Texaco purchased GM's share in GM Ovonics. A few months later, Chevron acquired Texaco. In 2003, Texaco Ovonics Battery Systems was restructured into Cobasys, a 50/50 joint venture between Chevron and Energy Conversion Devices (ECD) Ovonics. Chevron's influence over Cobasys extends beyond a strict 50/50 joint venture. Chevron holds a 19.99% interest in ECD Ovonics. Chevron also maintains veto power over any sale or licensing of NiMH technology. In addition, Chevron maintains the right to seize all of Cobasys' intellectual property rights in the event that ECD Ovonics does not fulfill its contractual obligations."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel-metal_hydride_battery#Patent_encumbrance_of_NiMH_batteries
There are multiple patents. Searching for "NIMH" and "Ovonic" at uspto.gov and you'll get quite a few hits.
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=0&f=S&l=50&TERM1=NIMH&FIELD1=&co1=AND&TERM2=ovonic&FIELD2=&d=PTXT
Thump. Joe's argument is dead. Good job cornelius
JOE patents are what makes this so bad. you see until the patent expires you CAN NOT build an EV Nimh LFF battery pack without explicit permission from Chevron. SO how do they sit on it? Easy. They refuse to give you permission. DONE. could you use the patent information to "make it anyway" ? sure Could Chevron then sue you into non existence and OWN every battery you make? NO they answer is not could they. They definitely WOULD in a heart beat and they have way more dollars and way more lawyers than you do. Unless something changes you can not TOUCH that patent till 2017. All you can do is exactly what you mentioned. LOOK at it and dream.
THATS how you "sit" on a technology. You just refuse to license it. Unlike Trademarks etc.. you are under NO obligation to actually USE a patent you own. Thats part of the problem.
And yet large format NiMH batteries are quite clearly available:
http://www.saftbatteries.com/120-Techno/10-10_produit.asp?paramtechno=Nickel+systems&Intitule_Produit=NHE
http://www.saftbatteries.com/130-Catalogue/PDF/NHE_en.pdf
Patents are a lot more specific then you guys seem to think.
Good Luck buying those batteries. They are likely arrays of smaller batteries inside. I gave up looking for LFF Nimhs some time ago. I always get taking no more orders OR ultra expensive multi cell arrays to make the "large" nimh battery.
@Chris:
Did you read my other post? Of course they're multi-cell arrays- by the voltage, they have to be. You can't make a 6/12 volt NiMH cell.
but if I could buy 100amp hour NIMHS I would only need 80 cells total to get a 96v 100amp hour battery pack. That should be enough to get me some 200+ miles on a charge. The larger cells are also more durable IE they last lot longer with far lower "loss" over time. Some of the original LFF nimhs have over 150,000 miles on them and still retain 95% or more of there original capacity!! Reduce that to 48v and use a reduction drive to get your needed speed (lower acceleration but thats ok with me) and now you only need 40 cells!!! Much easier to manage charge and maintain. also its a lot easier to manage a cell that is 10% off match to the rest of the cells when your talking 100amp batteries than it is when your talking 10amp batteries.
For me to replicate that pack would require 800 cells with the currently "permissable" nimhs. which is why you don't see it being done.